


The Weight of a Shield

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Reasons for Fighting (Suikoden II) [3]
Category: Suikoden, Suikoden II
Genre: Angst, Grief, Group Sex, Multi, Pegging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 14:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18527134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: Following the events during the liberation of Matilda, Riou grieves by losing himself in the support (the sexy variety) from his friends. But Shu needs him to press on and invade Highland, and confronts him on the roof of the castle to try and convince him. What understanding will they reach under the watchful gaze of the moon?(Is it still spoilers if the game is 20 years old? If so, there are spoilers for major events in the game.)





	The Weight of a Shield

When the empty space of Nanami’s rooms become too much, he fills them with people. Bodies moving in time to pleasure and need, to celebration and joy that Nanami, who hated the war, would have approved of.

Riou kneels on the edge of the bed, arms taut behind him in Wakaba’s hands. She enters him with a discipline he’d admire more if he could focus on it fully, but his attention is split between the smooth thrusts from her strap-on and his mouth around Sheena’s cock. Without the support of his arms he can’t pull his head away, and Sheena takes advantage by thrusting up, grinning as Riou gags. The room around them flows with blurred movement that resembles a dance. Riou concentrates on his breathing, on trying to keep his teeth out of the way, on—Sheena comes in his mouth, hoarse groan half laugh as Cas is forced to swallow what he can and let the rest dribble down his chin. Behind him he feels Wakaba’s pace falter as the show must have put her over the edge, and Riou worries for a moment she might drop him.

But of course she doesn’t, pulling him back instead, toned arms wrapping around his chest and stomach, one hand finding him very hard. Riou gasps as she works him, gaze roving about the room. Raura and Viki are losing themselves on the other side of the bed. Ellie stands a short distance away, eyes glued on him, Kinnison on his knees before her and Sasuke on his knees behind her, their tongues meeting across her sensitive skin. Futch and Bob are tangled up in some of the sparring equipment, Futch’s legs completely off the ground as Bob enters him, the two locked in a messy kiss. 

Riou is rocked back to his body as Wakaba’s hand is replaced by Sheena’s mouth, the young man repaying the favor from before and taking him deep. Wakaba gives a trust of her hips for good measure, pushing Riou even further into the Sheena’s throat, and the indignant look on the young lord’s face is enough that Riou can’t hold back any longer, clenching around Wakaba’s strap on as he lets loose. Sheena backs off quickly, using his hand to make Riou tremble with pleasure. The room fades back again as he rides his orgasm for every quaking breath, until he is a bit of kindness rain melting back against Wakaba’s steady body.

Things flow, move, and new dancers meet and part. Riou tries to hold it in his heart, in all the empty places he can’t seem to fill. 

Afterward he slips from the room and the peaceful quiet of so many sleeping bodies. He walks naked up the stairs and onto the highest roof of the castle. The moon is waiting for him.

He stands in the cool glow of it, stone beneath this feet, the air still. He stretches out his arms, feeling the exhausted muscles, the constant drain of the rune on his hand. A shield can protect, but it is a heavy thing. And what good it is when it can’t protect those who matter most?

“She wouldn’t have wanted you to catch cold.”

The voice is almost kind but Riou can hear the effort of it, the way it doesn’t quite feel right, like a bit of winter wind on a peaceful summer’s night. He shivers, and Shu steps closer, arms outstretched, holding a dark jacket.

“I don’t need to hear what she would have wanted,” Riou says. He knows what she wanted—she told him as much in Tinto. To run away. To end the war. To never have to watch Riou and Jowy kill each other, as the war seemed intent on bringing about. As their runes cried for with every pulse of power.

Shu doesn’t shrink away, doesn’t respond at all, just keeps holding out the jacket. Shu, whose plan all of this has been. Who has played the war like an instrument, like a game where they are all no more than pieces.

“I—”

He wants to say he doesn’t need the sympathy, the pity. Doesn’t need Shu’s charity, or whatever this is. Riou knows what they are to each other, that mix of angel and demon. Riou is a leader, a hero, a tool to be used to stop the spread of death and tyranny. Shu is a general, a strategist, a diabolical brain able to dance with death itself, to coax from war the delicate moans of victory. The two stare at each other over the jacket.

Another cool breeze settles the matter, and Riou snatches it from Shu’s hands and swings it around himself. Shu smiles but still says nothing.

“Thank you,” Riou says, because despite everything, the roiling mix of emotions that he gets whenever he looks at Shu, he also knows it’s not the man’s fault. Not really. It’s none of their fault. Not that it helps.

“I wondered if you had thought more about the invasion,” Shu says. “Every day we linger is another that Highland can recover. If we don’t act, the war—”

“Nanami hated the war,” Riou says, the words ripping their way from his core. “She hated everything about it. Told me over and over not to fight. Not to lead people to their deaths. And she was my family. The person in this world I trusted more than anyone else.”

His minds drifts to Matilda, to the great hall and all that space, and the whistling approach of arrows. He glares at Shu, whose expression does not waver, does not lose the slight curve to his lips, like he’s nearly amused by it all. Riou wants to hit him. Wants to throw him from the ledge, wants to watch the seconds tick away before the dull thud of a body’s surrender to gravity and earth. 

“But when it came down to it,” Riou says, “I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t let her take me away from this. I listened to you. And now she’s dead.”

That little smile does flee at that, and Shu’s face goes through a kind of transformation, a dance of expressions chasing each other. Anger and sadness and shock and...something that Riou can’t quite pick up, something guarded, almost like guilt. But surely Shu wouldn’t feel something so...human.

Shu opens his mouth, something in his face soft and needful, and it’s like their roles are suddenly reversed and it’s him standing there naked, young, and with the weight of the world riding him. But it’s only for a moment before Shu’s composure slips back into place and he steps back and stands straight.

“Then we can be done with each other sooner the faster you agree to the invasion,” he says. “After that, there will be no more need of me here. Without war...” Shu shrugs. “...what use is a strategist?”

Riou can see the trap that Shu’s opened. The promise that Riou can strip from him his purpose, his importance, making him back into a businessman or diplomat. Only Riou doesn’t care about what happens to Shu afterward. There’s no satisfaction in the thought of making the great strategist a glorified fish monger once more. Not when it means...Nanami...and Jowy. Riou’s hand balls into a fist, and the Bright Shield Rune flares.

_It can go so many ways. The two could embrace, and throw away the pain they’ve caused each other, and themselves. Riou could rip off Shu’s clothes and have him there on the cold stones of the castle, open the night sky, the moon, and the flying squirrels watching from the shadows. They could lose each other in the desperate need to not break apart under the strain of it, under the weight of their griefs and their crimes. Still wearing only the jacket, Riou would enter Shu with only the roughest of lube and the two could cry out together as they came, as they filled the night with something other than the silence of loss._

_Or they could fight, brawl like cats as the world sleeps around them, beat each other bloody for the need to feel something other than despair. They could paint the stones in their blood and collapse afterward, heaving with tears and the frustration that there are some things you cannot kill away._

_Or they could stand there in the chilling night in silence, search each other’s face for the words to make it right, to express all the things they cannot say. And, failing that, they could turn away from each other, letting the darkness fall between them. Shu could retreat and Riou could stand there, heart beating to a song used to accompaniment, now a solo. In the morning he would return the jacket, which would be received without comment._

Riou shivers. He looks into Shu’s eyes, wondering if he saw it as well, but all he sees is a mute concern, like the strategist fears he’ll collapse again and tumble over the edge. And it’s like Riou can see the growing chasm between them, all the pain and death that they can’t unlearn from looking at each other. Their shared guilt, their shared sin. But also, perhaps, their shared burden. Because despite everything, they’re still working for the same end, feeling the same helpless pain at every friend who doesn’t return.

All his life, Riou has chosen to reach out across the distance, to welcome people close, to share in their warmth. Why then flee now, from the man in front of him, his brother in arms? He thinks maybe a part of himself died with Nanami, but was it the part capable of love? Of compassion? He thinks of the people below in the room he slipped out of, and all over the castle. He was right when he called Nanami family. But his family has grown large. Riou takes a deep breath, then lets it go.

“There’s going to be a...a sort of commemoration,” he says, “at the baths tomorrow. A final farewell to fallen friends before...before we invade Highland.”

Shu’s eyes widen and that tiny smile returns. “I’ll inform the men that we’ll be moving out soon, then.”

It’s Riou’s turn to smile, and he gives a little shake of his head.

“No, I mean...I mean if you wanted to attend...”

Riou can’t help but react to the stunned look on Shu’s face. He slides the jacket from his shoulders and down his arms and holds it back to the strategist.

“I mean, Flick and Camus and Miklotov will be there, too, and I’d _love_ to see if you can keep up with the fancy lads.”

This time Shu’s smile is different, and even in the moonlight Riou can tell he’s blushing. He takes back his jacket, hands lingering on Riou’s a moment before pulling away.

“Please,” Shu says, swinging the jacket on and pulling it straight with a fluid grace. “They don’t stand a chance.”

And their laughter fills the cold corners of the night, and the moon feels just a bit warmer.

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing my short fics as I play through the game again. This portion of the game is one of the darkest in any that I've played, where even as victory comes closer and closer, it costs more and more from Riou. And all the hope of victory becomes ash and grief. So of course I want to write all the rather messed up sex into this, because why not? As an aside, I'm not the hugest of Shu fans but I get the appeal and I think at this point something between them makes a lot of sense, seeing as how Riou would be looking for someone who understands the weight of the war, as Shu does. Anyway, cheers!


End file.
